Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Window on Eurasia: European Union Shows the Way on Crimean Non-Recognition Policy

Paul
Goble

Staunton, June 25 – In 1940, consistent
with the principle that territorial changes achieved by force alone would not
be recognized, the US took the lead in articulating a non-recognition policy concerning
the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and for the next 50
years, it maintained that policy until the Baltics recovered their de facto
independence.

In a Twitter post on Monday, Swedish
Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said that the European Union “had made a decision
to prohibit any import from Crimea that was not confirmed by Kyiv ... as a
signal about possible further measure to be taken in the struggle with the illegal
occupation.”

The decision came at a meeting of EU
foreign ministers in Luxembourg which also discussed possible additional sanctions
against the Russian Federation for its role in the occupation, subversion and
destabilization of Ukraine.

Given the criticism the EU has
received for not being as willing as the US to sanction Moscow, EU action on
the occupation of Crimea is important for three reasons. First, it moves beyond
declarative language to put in place a set of actions that underscore the
European Union’s commitment to the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

All too many countries in the West
appear to have accepted Putin’s Anschluss of Crimea as a fait accompli about
which there is nothing anyone can do at least in the near term and shifted
their focus to Putin’s subversion of Donetsk, Luhansk and other parts of
Ukraine where the Russian efforts at destabilization continue.

The EU’s action underscores that the
occupation of Crimea is both continuing and illegal and that Kyiv’s sovereignty
over it must be reaffirmed by members of the international community – even if
it may be some time before the aggressor withdraws. The fact that Russian occupation may be long
is all more reason for such policies.

Second, it serves notice to Moscow
almost more than anything could that the borders of the Russian Federation
themselves are illegitimate if they include as Putin now insists Crimea.That narrowly crafted legal doctrine of
non-recognition in this case as in the Baltic one thus highlights a reality few
have been willing to admit.

It shows that a state like Putin’s
Russian Federation which is built on the seizure of territory from other
internationally recognized states can never be fully legitimate in the eyes of
the world until it withdraws from its conquests. For 50 years, that was at the core
of US non-recognition policy on the Baltics. Let us hope it will not take
Moscow as long now to withdraw.

And third, the EU policy is important
for the people of Crimea. It makes it clear that Western countries will not
forget what has happened to them and their land, that there is a way forward
besides bending their knees to the Russian occupation, and that just as in the
case of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, they will eventually see their rightful
status restored.

It is long past time for other countries
in the West to follow the EU’s lead on this point and to craft a
non-recognition policy regarding Putin’s seizure of Crimea not so that anyone
can feel morally self-satisfied but rather so that Crimea will not be forgotten
and so that it will eventually again become de facto what it has not ceased to
be de jure – a legal part of Ukraine.